


Eyes Like His Mother

by hailsatanstyles



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alcohol, Brother Feels, Car Accidents, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-08
Updated: 2013-05-08
Packaged: 2017-12-10 19:50:15
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,257
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/789503
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hailsatanstyles/pseuds/hailsatanstyles
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It’s only eight at night, and Sam's seventeen, and he’s tired of the standard- the hunts, the yelling, and the feeling of being a complete and utter misfit.  So after the door of their motel room slams shut and the dust settles from the latest fight, he drinks.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Eyes Like His Mother

It’s only eight at night and they’re in the middle of Kentucky on a standard salt and burn, and Sam is drunk.  It’s only eight at night, and he’s seventeen, and he’s tired of the standard- the hunts, the yelling, and the feeling of being a complete and utter misfit.  So after the door of their motel room slams shut and the dust settles from the latest fight, he drinks.  He doesn’t see a problem with it.  Hell, his dad and Dean have been doing it since he can remember, no reason why he should be any different.

 

Except he started drinking at five, and his dad still hasn’t come back, and he’s staring at himself in the bathroom mirror wondering if he has his mother’s eyes.  Dean is knocking on the door relentlessly, waiting to use the bathroom and Sam keeps telling him to _hang on a damn minute_ , because this is important and Dean can’t interrupt this.

 

“I will piss on your god damned bed if you don’t unlock this door in five seconds, Sammy.”

 

Sam actually wouldn’t put it past Dean to do something like that because he’s been in here for a while, and seriously, how much more of a brat could Sam be, but the flickering lights of this stupid, grimy, motel bathroom just aren’t reflecting the hazel in his eyes the way he wants them to.

 

“Shut up.” He slurs, squinting into the mirror, gently running his tongue over his bottom lip in total concentration.  This is important.

 

It would be comforting to know he had his mother’s eyes.  Since growing into his lanky figure, Dean’s taken to calling him the ‘gentle giant’.  He’s always heard about how loving and gentle she was, maybe he got that from her too.  Or maybe he’s way too fucking drunk to even be allowed to have thoughts because Dean has to pee and Sam’s being a jerk.

 

For all intents and purposes, Sam concludes that he has his mother’s eyes, and he’s okay with that, happy, even.  Shoving his body weight against the door, he stumbles out of the bathroom, into his less than thrilled older brother.

 

“You smell like a keg, go lay down.” Dean grumbles as he pushes his way past Sam. “And I hope you washed your hands if you were jerking off in there.”

 

He flops on the bed, legs hanging over the edge, because Dean knows what he’s talking about more often than not.  He tries to keep the room from spinning, but the bed is too small and the sheets are scratchy against his arms and neck.  Sam’s only been drunk a whopping one time in his life, and it was on accident after Dean gave him the wrong eggnog on Christmas a few years back.  A telenovela is playing through the static on the television and Sam is slowly but surely translating the words just to give himself something to do so his brain doesn’t turn to mush.

 

Dean comes out of the bathroom wiping his hands on a blue hand towel, and throws it at Sam’s face. “So, why’d you do it?” He asks, lowering himself onto the bed opposite Sam’s, taking his shotgun out of the duffle bag at the foot of the bed.  Sam doesn’t answer but his face is burning from embarrassment anyway, because this whole situation makes him feel like he’s seven years old.   _Why’d you take the last of the Fruit Loops when you know they’re my favorite, Sammy?_ If the pile of Blue Ribbon beer cans in the bathroom tub didn’t speak volumes…

 

Dean takes the silence as answer enough, and begins to disassemble the gun and clean it.

 

Crumpling up the towel and tossing it on the floor, Sam sits up, mindful of the dizziness that’s plaguing him, and leans his elbows against his knees, cradling his head. “I’m just tired.”

 

Dean lets out a calm sigh, that of a person who has played the buffer for far too long, but doesn’t know anything else. “You know,” he puts down the pieces of the gun he was cleaning and runs a calloused hand over his jaw, “when he yells like that, it’s only because he wants to make you better.  Maybe you shouldn’t take it so personal all the time.”

 

Sam genuinely _snorts_ at that.  Insinuating that he’s a liability on a hunt, that he should just stay in the library and sort through hundreds of newspapers and police reports; definitely not a personal attack at all. “I’m just as good a hunter as you, Dean, and you know that.”

 

“What?” he asks like he’s not quite following. “Of course I know that, I fucking trained you,”

 

Sam turns to face Dean and cuts him off, “Do you? Because you didn’t even try and defend me when Dad told me to sit this one out.” His face is shocked, as if the abnormal and bitter-tone actually reached out to slap Dean.

 

It’s eight-thirty at night and Sam is drunk and tired of being a verbal punching bag. It’s not _Sammy_ , it’s _Sam_ , and he’ll sit out of a hunt once Hell freezes over.  He slams his body backward, back onto the bed, and covers his face with a pillow.  None of the dumb motel pillows ever smell like home.  Home is leather and gun oil and Old Spice deodorant; home is the Impala, home is Dean… but Sam is hurt and all he can do is sit here and wallow in his misery because the person he thought would _get it_ just doesn’t, and he’s all alone.

 

“Sure, Sam, that’ll fix all the problems.  You just keep burying your damn head in that pillow hoping this’ll all blow over.” He can hear Dean get up and walk with his heavy boots over to the table, picks up his cell phone, checks the time and sighs heavily.  Sam knows this routine better than anything.  It’s Dean’s pacing of _where-the-hell-is-Dad-he-should-have-been-home-hours-ago-and-Sammy-is-being-difficult_.

“Fuck you.” He muffles into the pillow, unaware of whether or not it was audible.  The bed feels like it’s sinking into the ground and he feels like fighting, but if he took a swing he’d miss and end up on his ass, so he stays put.

 

Dean walks back over to the bed and pushes the pillow into Sam’s face, hard. “You owe me a case of beer, you brat.” The low purr of the Impala registers in his body, triggering the fight or flight response Sam normally saves for hunting.  He flings the pillow onto the floor and meets Dean’s eyes.  His eyebrows are raised in surprise like he wasn’t quite expecting his dad to ever come back, as he heads to unlatch the door.

 

The tension in the room is almost deadly when their dad walks in, throws the keys on Sam’s bed, drops his duffle in the corner of the room, and heads straight to the bathroom to patch up.  Dean is on his heels with the medical kit.  Either he decided to go on the hunt solo, or got into a bar fight, whichever it is, Sam just can’t bring himself to care.  He keeps his eyes trained on the maroon carpeting, wondering how often the maids actually clean the floor; his guess is around once a month, maybe less.  Hopefully his dad won’t realize he’s out of his mind right now; totally fucked, out of control, hardly an ounce of what makes Sam, Sam.

 

Dean is eyeing him from the bathroom doorway as he holds a bandage out to their father, almost like he’s waiting for round two to start any moment, waiting for Sam to fall apart at the seams.  He can hear them arguing quietly so that Sam can’t decipher exactly what they’re fighting about, but Dean is getting heated and animated, and their voices are at full force now, like they don’t even realize Sam is on the edge of the bed gritting his teeth against saying something.

 

“You have to learn to _trust_ him.” Dean emphasizes, throwing his hands in the air.

 

He can see John rise from sitting on the edge of the tub, “And _you_ have to learn not to trust him as much as you do.  This behavior is unacceptable, and I don’t need you calling the shots around here, Dean.  You’re a soldier, not a captain.”

 

As much as he appreciates Dean standing up for him now, he can’t stand to listen to them argue. “Leave him alone!” Sam shouts.  The people in the rooms next to them can definitely hear everything.  They’re hanging the Winchester dirty laundry out to dry tonight.

 

John shoves past Dean, into the kitchenette area, one of Sam’s empty beer cans in his hand. “You want my respect?” The tone in his voice makes Sam step back closer to the door. “I said, _do you want my respect_?” He repeats louder, crushing the can and throwing it at the wall.

 

“Dad, you’re scaring him, stop.” His brother is pleading from behind John, moving to stand between them.   _Always the buffer_. “Let’s just go to sleep and forget this ever happened.”

 

“It’s fine, I’ll leave.” Sam grabs the keys off his bed. “Fuck this family, this god damn salt and burn, and this dumb fucking state.”

 

“Sam,” he takes a step forward, hand reaching for the keys, “don’t do this to me again.” Dean’s even tone is betrayed by his eyes, which are threatening tears.  Sam knows he must be thinking of Flagstaff.  Might as well add Ashland to the list of places the Winchesters would burn to the groundbecause of the horrible memories tied to the land.  No amount of begging will change Sam’s mind, he is done; he’s leaving and never coming back.

 

“If you walk out that door, don’t you ever come back.” John warns in a dark tone.

 

He can hardly see straight, and he knows it’s a horrible idea to steal the Impala in general, let alone while drunk, but he needs to leave.  Sam feels like he may just die if he stays.  As much as he doesn’t want to leave his brother, he forces himself to say the words, “Goodbye, Dean.”

 

-

 

Dean’s left alone in the room with his dad, stunned. After what feels like an eternity, his limbs feel like they’re able to move again, and he chases Sam out to the car. “Sammy, please!”

 

The engine revs, and Dean grabs hold of the driver’s door.   _He is so stubborn_. “You’re gonna get yourself killed. Stop and come inside, c’mon, Sam.”

 

He’s begging, but he might as well be talking to a wall for all the attention Sam pays him.  Throwing the car in reverse, he almost runs Dean’s foot over in the process of screeching out of the parking lot.  Not even a minute passes before he hears the crash.

 

-

 

He’s on the pavement, screaming till he’s hoarse at the driver of the other car, with Sam in his arms.  It’s a young girl, possibly the same age as Sam is and she’s nervous and shaking. “I’m s-sorry, I blew the light, I-I didn’t see him coming.”

 

“Erg, _fuck_ ,” He’s pressing the sleeve of his flannel into the gash on Sam’s forehead, trying to stop the bleeding the best he can, “just call a damn ambulance.”

 

“Okay.  Alright.” She’s fumbling with her purse trying to find her cell phone.

 

Sam’s twisting in his arms trying to get out, get up, do something, because _what is going on_. “Dean, no, it’s okay. I’m okay.” He’s half-conscious, but he knows he might as well be dead because the Impala, and the argument, and he is going to be in so much trouble.  He tries to get up again, but curses under his breath with pain.

“Just stay put, Sammy.  Quit squirming.” Dean is pushing Sam’s hair back gently, away from his eyes. “Think you may have broken a rib, definitely have a cut on your forehead, you’ll be fine.  Patch you up and you’ll be fine.” He relives the pressure from the spot along his hairline to get a better look at the damage. “Probably get a badass scar.  Would you like that?  We can tell everyone you survived a bear attack or somethin’.”

 

The girl is on the phone with the dispatcher, and she says the ambulance should be here in ten minutes.  Dean’s trying to make Sam feel better, but he can tell how nervous Dean is, how everything isn’t as okay as he’s making it out to be.  This is the way it’s always been, and how it probably will be forever; Sam stubbornly getting into trouble, and Dean picking him back up and loving him unconditionally despite it.

 

“What about the car, Dean?” He asks.  It must be totaled… “Oh _god_ , Dad is going to kill me.” Sam feels his stomach turn just thinking about it.

 

He rubs calming circles into Sam’s hand, realizing how tense he is thinking about what their dad will say. “I’ll fix it up, it’ll be as good as new, you’ll see. He’ll just be glad you’re okay.”

 

“Dean?” He blinks tiredly. “Can we never come on a hunt here again?”

 

“Sure, Sammy.  No more Kentucky for the Winchesters.”

 

Closing his eyes and taking a deep breath, his lips upturn in a small grin, “Thanks, Dean, you’re the best.”

 

“No more drinking for you.” Dean chokes out, smiling down at Sam.

 

Sam quietly laughs back at him, “Yeah, I think I’ll stick to water from now on.” 

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this a while ago (like a year-oops) based off of a prompt my friend gave me. Completely forgot it existed until today. Hope you liked it.


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